TAMPA – Felix Rodriguez’ Yankee career is off to a rocky beginning. The righty reliever didn’t report to camp Tuesday and missed taking his physical yesterday morning.

According to his agent, Fernando Cuza, Rodriguez was booked on a plane from Philadelphia yesterday morning that would have gotten him to camp by 11 a.m. but was delayed. He was out of touch because his cell phone wasn’t on.

GM Brian Cashman will wait until he hears Rodriguez’ explanation before looking into fining Rodriguez, who was acquired from the Phillies for Kenny Lofton.

“We will wait and see what he says. There is a mandatory reporting date (March 1),” Cashman said.

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Gary Sheffield was mum yesterday. He worked out the Yanks’ minor league complex in the morning and refused all requests to follow up the remarks he made Tuesday when he nudged Jason Giambi, campaigned for stronger suspensions for steroid users and argued he should have been the MVP instead of Vladimir Guerrero.

“Let’s get it out in the open as early as possible,” Cashman said of Sheffield’s remarks. “Spring training is about aches and pains and not just muscle related.”

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Kevin Brown is hopeful that he has found the solution to the back problems that ruined his first Yankee season.

“Thank God I found somebody I feel like has really helped me,” Brown said. “Whether or not it’s enough to be as good as I want to be again, I don’t know. I do know my back feels a lot better than what it did.”

Brown worked with a physical therapist in Macon, Ga., over the offseason and reported pain-free.

“Structurally, I had some stuff that I had to try and get realigned,” Brown said. “Between the hip and lower couple of vertebrae, like the L4-5, were just rotating out of position.”

Joe Torre will let Brown take baby steps.

“I’m just gonna ease into it and take my time, make sure that I’m ready the beginning of season instead of trying to make sure I’m ready in a week-and-a-half, two weeks,” Brown said.

And make sure he doesn’t pound any walls with his left hand.

“If I had found a punching bag to hit or something a little softer it wouldn’t have been an issue,” Brown said. “I let my emotions take control of me at that point in time.”

Brown doesn’t regret starting Game 7 of the ALCS.

“If they ask you to take the ball what do you do? If you don’t take the ball you always wonder. If we lose and I don’t take the ball, is it my fault that I didn’t step up and say OK, give me the ball anyhow, I’ll do it, I’ll go out there? If I had not done it and we won, then great, I did the right thing, we made the right decision.”